Politicians Crying

I was watching 60 minutes today when they were doing a special  on the future speaker of the house, John Boehner. John Boehner has a history of crying in public when giving emotional speeches. Boehner even teared up a bit during the interview. Boehner is not embarrassed of his ability to control his crying, or lack there of. He says that it is "who he is." 60 minutes compared him to a couple of politicians back in the day who have cried, and lost the elections because they "didn't have a back bone," or "weren't man enough." Today, it is a little different. showing emotions in public is not criticized as harshly, and is thought to be good in ways. President Obama cried the day before the election, and now we have Boehner. The news caster said she believes that Boehner will not be criticized harshly today because of our changing society, and I agree with that. I believe that he will be just fine and that even if he is a man, it is not embarrassing to show your emotions in public, it almost makes you more of a man. For the 60 minutes overtime video the link is http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504803_162-20025417-10391709.html?tag=exclsv

Film: North Country

I think it would be a great idea to show the film North Country in future classes. North Country is about a woman overcoming adversity in life and in the workplace when she is constantly abused physically and mentally by men. Although she paid in to the union, the union did not treat her as well as it did the men. She faced trouble with the other women as well because they felt that by escalating the issue they were making things worse for themselves. I believe this would be a great film for class because it really shows the conflicts within gender, and how we have overcome these flaws that were accepted years ago. It not only portrays it in the sense of the workplace, but in her life as well. When watching it I could not believe what she had to go through just to file a lawsuit, not just to win it.

Bridges

The poem I read in class today hit home for me, as well as for the rest of my group. The poem was about being  a bridge between different people of race, background, gender, and attitude. You talk with these people about things that may not agree with the other people. It becomes difficult to manage all of these different attitudes when around different people. I face something like this with my own friends. The only way friends from school know friends at home is through me. Sometimes they get along, sometimes not. It becomes difficult to bridge these two lifestyles and manage them efficiently, it can become sickening. When an argument does break out, it is tough to take sides, and you feel like you have failed at being that bridge which is a terrible feeling. This has been shown in a more extreme manner in the poem read in class. There are bigger issues out there than just friends, like being a bridge between a mother and father, or having black and white friends.

Placing tags on women of different race

The previous presentation and readings to our class really made me think about how we view women of different ethnic backgrounds and races. We tend to place tags on them based on roles they play in media of how they act and what their personalities are like. For example, Asian women in our views seem like delicate women but with a mischievous side. The mischievous side tending to relate to sexual activities. Another example relates to Latino women and how they are perceived as sexy tough women. They are portrayed as deceitful as well. These are personalities that we place on these women based on what we view in the media. A lot of these views are incorrect for the most part, which shows us how much the media has an effect on our views today.

I also found it interesting that a lot of women try to be part of a race they are not. For example, whitening creme. A lot of women from other countries use whitening cream to make their skin lighter because the men are attracted to lighter skinned women. In contrast, white women in the US use tanning beds to be darker. Why do we try to be who we are not? I want to raise the question again if the media has an effect on why we want to change our own race and backgrounds. 

Roles in relationships

I believe our presentation in class today went very well. The audience really took part in responding to our survey and giving us suggestions for the research we are doing. The result of our survey shows that the younger generation would like to evolve into a more egalitarian relationship type with a small emphasis from traditional relationships. One of the most interesting comments from the class is that we prefer a mixture of the two because both males and females enjoy certain parts of a traditional relationship. For example, a female enjoys things like a man opening a door for them. It is things like that, that make that mixture more appealing to the younger generation. I also found it interesting that we are emotionally, as well as economically motivated into accepting these egalitarian roles in relationships. I really appreciated the feedback from the class, it will definitely help when writing our paper.

Sex ed.

I went to a small high school about a half an hour outside of Huntingdon. At my high school the males were not educated in sex education other than in health class. In this class the information was vague, and it was 11th grade, students were already partaking in sexual activity at this time, so it was a little late. I do, however, remember when the females were educated about their period in elementary school. They were pulled out of class in to the library, and the males in the class bugged them all day about what they were pulled from class for and why we were not invited. Not one of the girls ever spilled what happened in there, almost like it was an embarrassment to them. I do think that we should have been educated in sexual education at an earlier age, but from an angle in which it did kind of scare us. I think that teaching sexual education in a positive manner and to wear protection will almost make younger people more curious about sexual activity. Not having these education experiences could also have an effect. What to do, What to do......

11/09/10 presentation

The presentation yesterday was focused on sex trafficking around the world. It seems as if these women who get involved with this one way or another really have few resources to depend on to save them from this cruelty. Looking back on the debate in class which arose from the suggestion that making prostitution legal and regulating it,  my opinion really swings both ways. While I do not have a good suggestion on how to stop these acts, I am leaning toward the fact that legalizing prostitution is not a good solution. First of all, prostitution is degrading to women and I do not agree with that. Second, regulating something like prostitution would be very tough. Third, while decreasing the amount of illegal sex trafficking, by legalizing it per-say, I do not think it would have a huge affect on the amount of illegal sex trafficking that would still be taking place.

I also could not believe the US was on the top 3 of imported sex trafficking. I am from the country so I do not have the opportunity to see some of these thing that I assume happen in larger cities. I think that instead of claiming that it doesn't happen here in the US, a stronger focus needs to be taken on these illegal acts so that we don't get to the point where we realize it is a large problem, kind of like "nipping it in the bud."

Reading: Sexual Assault in the military

Looking at the article on sexual assault on women in the military, I am absolutely stunned. It is bad enough that females have to go fight a war for our country, let alone the fact that they have to fight a war against our own military regarding rape. This is very disappointing to me. Everyone in the military has to have the ability to trust each other, and this makes it even tougher, especially with the guy "everyone pats on the back" in on the sexual assaults. Being attacked by both parties, one being your own, must be traumatizing and shouldn't be happening. I believe the organization is doing a good thing by collecting this information privately. This way there is more accurate data to provide to the public and the military so that action can be taken on the issue.

What a girl wants

The movie we watched in class today was very interesting. It was about younger females (10-14) and what they thought of role models in the year 2000, such as Brittany Spears, Mandy Moore, and Christina Aguilera. It was interesting to see how much they wanted to be like these girls and how they have effected their way of thinking. There were instances where the girls did not agree with what they were doing as well. I could not believe some of the things that they were thinking of at that age, it really showed how much the media can effect the mind of a young person. MTV's largest audience is between 9 and 14? That is also interesting to learn. A lot of people in reality shows, in music videos, in basically all shows are young mature adults. At the age of 9-14, this group is very curious as to what it is like to be an adult and this is where they're learning these things.

Manning up

After reading the article by Ruth Marcus about "manning up" and not being the problem in the election my eyes were opened up to how slang really affects the image of the politicians. The author of this article takes these sentences such as "man up," "get your man-pants on," and "man enough" very seriously and it is offensive to the female race. She even covered the fact that Sara Palin told politicians to "man up" when asking for capital to support Tea Party candidates. She also covered the word "whore" as an attack word used in a recording of Jerry Brown. Brown did not see a large issue with this when asked about it. Marcus offers some advice at the end of her article about not equating certain things with gender, such as toughness and weakness. Don't use sexist or raciest words, and "manning up" is not the issue, growing up is.
I personally agree with most of this article, most of it. I think the points at the end of it hit the nail on the head, but doesn't quite cover what she is arguing completely.  She spent the whole article arguing how offensive that was, only to finish without saying why. I can understand why though. My personal opinion on the phrase "man up" is that it is a term that is not taken literally by many people now, note I said many. I think it is like a lot of old sayings that have lost their meaning and we say them out of habit. I am sure that many people still take this literally, but when it is said it is not meant to be offensive most of the time, it is just said out of habit. Words like whore, or the n-word, are offensive words that need to be treated with caution.

How equity is creating more work for families

I was reading an article on the internet about how the roles in relationships after marriage are becoming more equal, yes more difficult for families. The roles in the house hold are evening out with a male doing approximately an hours more worth of work at the house in a week, while the woman's fell approximately a half hour. With this being said, we are coming closer and closer to equity in the work place every day. Women are working in the field a lot more than they were in the 50's. This is causing them to spend less time together, and creating a bit more stress in relationships. The woman still spends more time doing "house work" than the man, but again it is equaling out.
I believe that this is a good thing depending on the relationship and the career field. Minor details matter when dealing with a statistic like this. I believe with equity comes a better understanding of each others roles in the relationship and can lead to a healthy relationship. I'm not saying it would be less stressful, but  an understanding relationship is important to success.

Different Types of Feminism

We just met in our group after reading chapter 8 about the different types of feminism. I did not know that there were separate types of feminism. What really boggled my mind was how, for example, third wave feminists challenged second wave feminists in many different ways. I always just thought of it as an all for one, one for all thing. The chapter was very difficult to understand and put in context but after our group meeting, and talking about the different types of feminism, I believe I have a general understanding of the types. 

Axe commercial

It was very interesting to write the paper about my advertisement. The axe commercial about cleaning balls was the perfect commercial to point out how a company uses gender roles to promote a product. There were many different portions in the commercial that were perfect in proving my thesis. I have taken classes to analyze media before, but this time I broke it apart to look into the gender and conflict side of it and to see how gender roles played a big part in selling a male product.

Class Discussion 09/23/10

Class discussion today was a bit interesting. I really liked hearing about the physiological and biological side of gender and conflict. I was really into the conversation until some arguing went on and the lecture died on me. I would have really liked to hear more and get the full lecture. Dr. Whidman discussed things such as species and their testicle size has a relation with how "promiscuous" the female of that species is. He talked about the brain and how it works different with males and females. It was all very interesting.

By the way, I found a great website to pull some gender related advertisements off of: genderads.com. Enjoy.

Class Discussion 09/21/10

Today we broke up into groups to discuss a couple of questions based on our reading and on our experience. Our question was based on power distribution in a conflict and how we are impacted as men and women because of our identifications. At first all discussion in our group came down to an answer: "it just depends." We felt that our identities would be affected only by things like who we were around, their personalities, how this other person would react, etc. We were looking too much into the question at that point. We needed to look into the question in a general manner. How would society see it, not just people we knew, or hardly knew. The answers changed completely. How we react in a conflict could cause someone else with a societies point of view to question our gender. Such examples may include a woman punching a man in the face during a conflict, or a man crying. This may cause someone to question the persons gender.

Class Discussion 09/14/10

Conflict is a tough term to define. There are many aspects to conflict, and many ways it can be defined. At first conflict to me is an argument, and fighting, both realized by two or more people. Talking about one person being in a conflict without the other knowing redefined the term for me. Also splitting it into aggression and violence helped me understand what conflict is. I am interested to see how we will throw gender into the mix. How the situations are started, how they are solved, and what other factors may contribute to conflict. Between man and man, woman and woman, and man and woman will all be different situations.

09/07/10 Class discussion

Today's class was really interesting. I feel that activities in the class really bring out the discussion leading to main points in our class. The activity today was three separate skits, one in which two females were to act like guys watching football, one in which two males were to act like girls shopping, and the last which a female(acting like a male) was trying to "pick up" a male(acting like a female). It was really interesting to see how difficult it was for these people to play the part of the other gender, some started off great, but slowly faded back to their actual gender(personalities). It was even more interesting to discuss what they were doing wrong and why, generally men pointed out what the women were doing wrong, and vise versa.
The chapstick example was also very interesting, it is amazing how companies have really separated such a small product for both genders, and how we could point out what is man chapstick and woman chapstick.

Initial reaction to gender and conflict

I found that after the discussion this past Thursday that there are a lot of opinions and views that will feed this class. The poster activity was a great way to break the class in and start a discussion. I thought the female posters were very interestingly arranged, as well as similar. Since the males are outnumbered, we only had one poster. I think it would have been a lot more interesting to have two separate groups to bring our ideas together such as the females did. I found it interesting that our ideas of the perfect man suited, but did not match up with the females' ideas of a perfect man.
I look forward to talking about many things in this class, such as stereotypes, gender roles, as well as get into some heated arguments along the way. It will be interesting to see others perspectives on the same issues from a gender perspective rather than a general perspective.